"Just as tea takes the shape of whatever container it’s poured into, the mind tends to assume the shape of whatever thought, emotion, or sensation captures its attention. But it doesn’t just assume the shape of what is arising– it identifies with the object of attention."

~ Eric Klein

Eric Klein is a superb teacher who brings a very special energy to his teachings I've not encountered elsewhere. He doodles. Not just any doodles, but doodles that touch us, inspire us, make us laugh -- as we take a deep breath, go inside ourselves, and smile.

There's a lot of misunderstanding about meditation. It's not that hard to learn. It's not voodoo. It's proven to improve both mental and physical health. Learn more about meditation at http://nodiet4me.com/yoga/meditation/ .

Silence isn't something people usually associate with middle school, but twice a day the halls of Visitacion Valley School in San Francisco fall quiet as the...

Kat Tansey's insight:

Yet another study demonstrates the power of meditation to transform students and school environments. What if we focused on implementing this practice in more schools? How about a quiet revolution . . .

Jon Kabat-Zinn talks briefly about Mindfulness practices now going on in British Parliament -- read Mindful Magazine to be informed about the spread of mindfulness in government, schools, military, medicine, and other frontiers.

Meditators know that a daily practice reduces stress and helps them function better. Now MRI scans documented for the very first time in medical history show how meditation produces massive changes inside the brain’s gray matter.

Participants spent an average of 27 minutes per day for 8 weeks practicing mindfulness exercises, and this is all it took to stimulate a major increase in gray matter density in the hippocampus, the part of the brain associated with self-awareness, compassion, and introspection.

Participant-reported reductions in stress also were correlated with decreased gray-matter density in the amygdala, which is known to play an important role in anxiety and stress.

I've started sitting again after a long absence and it is both humbling and illuminating at the same time. I'm starting small -- just 20 minutes, and it seems like an eternity . . .

Kat Tansey's insight:

Why meditate?

I've started sitting again after a long absence and it is both humbling and illuminating at the same time. I'm starting small -- just 20 minutes, and it seems like an eternity.

How did I let my practice get away from me? And why have I waited so long to begin again? Ah, begin again, there's the rub. After all, I am a long-time meditator. I even wrote a book about it. Why am I here sitting with my legs hurting, starting over?

It's a long story, not one for the telling right now. The point is, I am back on my cushion and today I watched my mind frantically grasp one thought after another for 20 excruciatingly long minutes. It made me smile, and then it made me laugh out loud.

All these years I have encouraged, begged, pleaded with people to do this? Good grief, why would anyone want to do this?

I'll tell you why. Because for those twenty minutes I became my own best friend. I watched my mind with compassion, and, as Pema Chodron says in her new book on How to Meditate, I began again the practice of open awareness. As she describes it: "Feeling the tightness, the urgency, and letting it go -- again, and again, and again." This, my friends, is courage. And I don't know about you, but I am sorely in need of courage these days.

So here I am again, encouraging you to begin a meditation practice -- I mean, why should I be the only one who knows how to find courage simply by sitting on my butt?

Good Morning America and Nightline co-anchor Dan Harris reveals how he relied on recreational drugs to cope with the stresses of being a war correspondent. After receiving an assignment to cover

Kat Tansey's insight:

If you are skeptical about mindfulness meditation or know someone who is, Dan Harris might just be the guy who can get through to you or your friend that this mindfulness thing is something you might want to consider.

Enjoyable, funny, down-to-earth remarks by a guy who eventually overcame his skepticism and now calls mindfulness meditation a Superpower -- a game changing skill that helps you respond wisely to stimuli instead of reacting blindly.

This talk gets my vote as "Best presentation of mindfulness and what it can mean to you -- for those people who have been left out of the conversation until now."

"Our mission is to help lead the integration of mindfulness into education. We are a non-profit organization that offers a complete multi-level training program for adults, in-class instruction for children, and other resources to support mindfulness in education. Our program has used a scientifically proven technique called mindfulness to teach self-awareness, focus, impulse control, and empathy to over 18,000 children and 750 teachers in 70 schools, about 70% serving predominantly low-income children."

Kat Tansey's insight:

If you are interested in teaching mindfulness in your classroom, this is your opportunity to: learn and practice mindfulness yourself; learn a proven curriculum for teaching in the classroom; and become certified to teach this curriculum to K-12 students.

Even if you decide not to teach this curriculum, treat yourself to their online course in mindfulness -- it will change your life, and just by changing your life you will begin to change the lives of your students.

There is a difference between mindfulness meditation and simple mindfulness. The latter isn’t a practice separate from everyday life. Mindfulness just means becoming more conscious of what you’re feeling, more intentional about your behaviors and more attentive to your impact on others.

Kat Tansey's insight:

Learning to meditate can be daunting. Why not just spend a few minutes focusing on something in your mind's eye, or a few minutes watching your thoughts go by? Take a few breaths and become aware of your body.

Anyone can do this. It takes little time, no special environment required, no training needed. Just sit for a few minutes, breathe, observe your thoughts, or focus on one image. That's it.

Doing this whenever you can will increase your ability to be mindful throughout the day. For me, that has always been the goal of my meditation practice -- not what happens during my sitting; rather, how I deal with real life . . .

At first glance, Quiet Time - a stress reduction strategy used in several San Francisco middle and high schools, as well as in scattered schools around the Bay Area - looks like something out of the om-chanting 1960s.

Kat Tansey's insight:

The work that David Lynch and Russell Brand are doing to help spread the practice of meditation is encouraging. Quiet Time as a stress reduction strategy -- what a great concept!

A great book to read to get broader insight into brain plasticity and the growing body of science behind it is The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science by Norman Doidge. Mindfulness meditation and other psychological therapies such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy are proving to be powerful tools for reshaping thinking processes and, it seems, the entire range of cognitive function.

Even though a growing body of research has demonstrated the legitimate mental and physical health benefits of meditation, some people still consider mindfulness to be merely a New Age fad rather than a serious treatment option.

Now, a new Swedis...

Kat Tansey's insight:

Learning to meditate in the early 90's helped me heal from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and the depression that often comes with it. I wrote Choosing To Be: Lessons in Living from a Zen Master, which a story about my struggles with learning to meditate, to help others who are dealing with depression or simply want to learn to meditate. To learn more about the book, go to www.choosingtobe.com.

Learning to Meditate is a Hero's Journey of the Mind

Sometimes it is difficult to learn how to meditate from an enlightened guru, or at least it was for me when I was a beginner. I would read their words over and over, trying to understand what they were talking about -- but it was as though they were writing in a foreign language, one I had yet to learn.

I wrote about my own quest to become a meditator, and these writings evolved into the book "Choosing to Be: Lessons in Living from a Feline Zen Master," in which I describe the ups and downs of my struggle. My Maine Coon cat Poohbear Degoonacoon became the Feline Zen Master, and Catzenbear arrived as his kitten muse. Together we traveled the hero's journey, much like that of Don Quixote or Ulysses, except that most of the action happened within my own mind. (Come to think of it, much of their action happened in their minds too.)

You can enjoy our often humorous quest on Amazon Kindle. Who knows, perhaps you might even learn a thing or ten (as one of our generous reviewers wrote on Amazon).

"Choosing to Be is a short, original, comfortingly readable introduction to the Buddhist path, a way of living that places the primary responsibility for our happiness into our own paws, er…hands.” ~John Calabrese, Creations Magazine

Meditation gives us so many gifts. Start now. Sit for 5 minutes. Just start and worry about the form, the practice, and all the rest of it later. Or if sitting for 5 minutes is too much, just sit for 2 minutes after you finish reading this and Do Nothing. Breathe. Relax your shoulders. Just Be.

Daniel Goleman is raising the ante with his new book on "Focus." He says, "the game has changed so much that we have to get conscious and intentional about something we took for granted" -- i.e. our ability to attend and focus.

Technology is invading our ability to attend at an alarming rate . We need to develop tools to help us raise our awareness of what is going on in our mind and know how to bring it back.

Turn off Facebook, Twitter, in fact turn off the computer for a day. No cell phone. If this makes you anxious, then it may be time to get some help in learning how to regain control of your mind.

Most of the women I know feel pulled in so many directions. Our culture - listen to me, right now, I want it now, I want you to do it now - promotes us being on the go all the time and feeling guilty when we aren't. I believe it's time to settle in and shut down on a regular basis - to know what's happening within ourselves and to come out fresher with a new lease on life.

Over the past few years, meditation has evolved from an of-the-moment fad to a legitimate health craze, as research has linked the practice to everything from improved cardiovascular health to cognitive benefits. Science has even shown that mindfulne...

Kat Tansey's insight:

Very nice graphic and summary of studies in this article about how meditation benefits us in so many ways.

Renunciation is not giving up the things of the world, but accepting that they go away.

Kat Tansey's insight:

Learning about letting go is, in my humble opinion, one of the more important lessons in life. I wrote about the Hindrance of Clinging in Choosing To Be -- I learned about how to deal with it then, and I continue to learn more about it every day.

To understand that clinging is human nature, sit and watch your thoughts for a few minutes. Feel the stickiness of some of them. Watch yourself holding on to them . . .

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